An Hour-long interview with MONTGOMERY CLIFT

Montgomery Clift, 1954 (above)
Montgomery Clift, 1965 (below)

I was unaware that this television interview existed until I recently stumbled upon it on YouTube (separated into five 10 minute segments). The interviewer is Hy Gardner, who was an entertainment columnist with the New York Herald Tribune (defunct) and hosted this, "The Hy Gardner Show". It was taped in January of 1963 when Clift was 42. The tape clearly comes from the Gardner estate, as his wife's name is plastered across the middle of the screen throughout the entire show, but you won't notice it after a while.  The ravages of years of drug and alcohol abuse, as well as the disfiguring car accident he was involved in in 1956 are very apparent in this hour-long interview, the only "sit-down" television interview he ever gave. For that reason alone, it's a valuable piece of insight into the mind of this brilliant but tortured actor, who only lived for about three more years after this was taped. He's quite lucid here, though he does "fog over" a bit at times. Still, if you are interested in Clift, you're going to find this most illuminating.  Sad, but illuminating....